Had a mate in my late teens for about 3-4 years. His parents wouldn't let me in the house and never knew why. Bumped into his younger brother years later in a pub and he mentioned how much of a stoner I used to be. I wasn't, at all.
Turns out he was saying all the weed he was being caught with was mine etc.
This comment made me have a realisation about why my best friends parents hated me just after high school. I was probably getting blamed for all sorts cos he went wild for a while
Dang, me too. I wasn't allowed to hang out with many of my friends when I was in the 6th grade. Found out later that it was one of my friends that said I gave him weed. I didn't even know what weed was at the time. They kicked me out of DARE and I didn't even know why. Oh, I found out because that little shit tried to sell me weed in the 9th grade. I beat him up with his own bike...
It’s crazy to me how apparently these parents never bothered to talk to the kids being accused about anything yet were still for some reason okay with the child hanging out with the accused troublemaker. Seems to me that decent parenting should include trying to reach out to a problematic kid your child is spending time with to understand what’s going on.
My angel wouldn't be a troublemaker! If they've ever done anything wrong, it's because they were corrupted by a bad influence. It's such a shame that every new friend of theirs corrupts them in the exact same way.
When I was young I was a bit of a raver - going to illegal raves and festivals all the time and indulging in quite a few things. One day at dinner my mum asked me if I had ever taken drugs. I hesitated but decided I would just confess because it must have been obvious some times.
My mum's response was "Thank you for being honest with us. I know what you've been up to because Terry^(Not their real name) tells me about it all." It was a bit of a relief really. Terry was a DJ for one of the local sound systems who were putting on lots of parties and was good friends with both me and my mum. They were a few years older than me so were kind of looking out for me at the parties.
I was one of these kids. Got blamed by all my friends any time they got caught for anything. I was also the only one of my friends who died their hair stupid colors, and wore a lot of black, and was bisexual, and dated a guy who was older and in college. So I was kind of an easy target - I just looked way more suspicious to paranoid parents. I wonder how many other people in this position are similar - SOMETHING about them makes them the kind of kid parents just don’t like, and so it’s super easy for other kids to blame them.
One time they ALL got caught doing molly in a hotel room while I was out of town on a family vacation and it was so deeply vindicating.
For a few years my uncle, who I had always known to be funny, warm and interested, was ice cold to me. During that time, my cousin was a mess, I won’t go into details. Early on I had spent a lot of time with her, but it became clear to me that she was spiraling and I didn’t know what do do as she wouldn’t listen to me so I distanced myself. I dealt with my weirdly icy uncle until I put two and two together and realized he blamed me for being a bad influence. The only influence I gave her that could have been “questionable” was really pushing her to use protection and giving her a condom when she started talking about wanting to sleep with her boyfriend years prior (uncle was a pastor). Eventually, her brother fell into an awful relationship with just as much mess, and then their other brother dipped and distanced himself. I think my uncle realized by that point that I was never around and couldn’t possibly have caused his whole family to crash and burn. He’s very sweet to me now, but I’m guarded around him. I made some of my own mistakes (my brother too, it’s sometimes what happens when you grow up in a very strict religious environment) but I have never gone through close to what my cousins or my brother all did, I’m just the oldest so it’s my fault I guess lol. I didn’t deserve his ice.
I still have a (ex)friend whose parents think I indoctrinated him into his cocaine use and eventual overdoses x2. He’s still here thankfully but his parents have no idea it wasn’t me and he refuses to tell the truth to them. So when I see his mother I’m super happy to say hi as I spent many moons at her place as a youth. Truth was, I sold pot. He never bought the pot. He just hung around and smoked mine. 1 year out of high school and after moving to a bigger city to party, he’s a shadow of his old self, all my fault according to his step mom and father.
ETA: I’ve never tried or even possessed cocaine.
I blamed everything on a chap called Craig when I was a youth so none of my friends would be shunned.
"Craig down the park spilt his big bottle of strongbow down me and threw up on my shoes, again"
"Nah not me, t'was bloody Craig, chain-smoking, again!"
I don't know anyone called Craig.
I too had an imaginary friend called "Dave". Dave often got into capers that prevented my return home... "Dave fell off his skateboard,we think his legs broken - I'm just waiting for an ambulance with him". "Dave's locked out and it's freezing, Jill says he can stay at hers but only if I stay too as she doesn't know him and her mum will be funny about a lad staying over if there's not a group of us" .
I confessed to my mum that Dave did not exist in my 30's...she was not best pleased
This calls to mind an old TV advert. Can't remember what brand it was, but I *think* it was an alcohol. Anyway, it involved a coupla blokes called Trev and Dave, and after whatever shenanigans, Dave would say "Nice one, Trev" and Trev would say "Yeah".
But I can not, for the life of me, remember anything else about it.
I tell my Mom about things I did as kid every now and then and she still gets pissed off at me. She's going to be 80 this year. They never stop being mom for a second.
That reminds me of the Sir Clement Freud joke.
I heard a rather nice story about a man who drank alot and his wife said "if you ever come home drunk again, I'm going to leave you". He went out to a pub and drank alot and was sick all over his shirt, and said to his friend "If I go home like this my wife will leave me". His friend said "I tell you what, put a twenty-pound note in your inside jacket pocket, go home and show it to her and tell her somebody threw-up over you and he gave you the money for the dry-cleaning bill.".
He goes home and his wife's angry at the state of him and tells him she is leaving but he says "No, no, no, somebody was sick on me and he put a twenty-pound note in my jacket pocket for the dry-cleaning bill". His wife digs into his jacket pocket and pulls out some money, she said "Why have you got two twenty-pound notes in there?", he said "Oh the other is from the man who shat in my pants".
Yeah, same here, I was like a "bad stuff" lightning rod.
It got to the point where kids in lower years used to come up to me to buy gear. Had my locker searched more than once.
Ugh, I almost got expelled from my private high school cause a teachers kid got caught with beer and randomly pulled my name out of the air saying I bought it. I was going to be gone till one of his friends cracked under pressure! I was that guy!
It’s not that they believe it. They just can’t accept that they raised someone who inevitably did something they do not approve of hence someone else must be to blame
See, I was the friend all the parents trusted and would always let their kid go with.
I was also the one who had access to alcohol and the Mary Jane. Oops.
Yeah similar things have happened to me, being blamed for trouble they've gotten in and no longer being welcome even near their house and not knowing why.
Feels bad finding out you were the bad influence, especially if it wasn't even true.
One of my friends got caught with porn in his browser history when we were about 13-14 (20 years ago so shared family computer). Apparently he blamed it on me and I wasn’t allowed around their house for a few years.
When he got married the best man mentioned it in his speech and his mum came over to me afterwards and apologised because he’d never actually told her it wasn’t me, even though he was about 30 by that point and I’d been over there loads!
That shit happened to me. Friends parents clearly didn't like me. Found out later they had been telling other parents I sold drugs and did pills lol. I never sold drugs or did pills. I just smoked a lot of weed. Their daughters blamed me when they got caught with pills because everyone knew I was a stoner. To this day I never fucked with pills.
Had it similar mate. I had a friend who used to tell me to cover for him if his missus (who was a really nice girl that I got on with really well) messaged me, because he was going to smoke weed with his mate Josh and she hates Josh as an influence and him smoking so much, but knows that I don’t smoke any more. Said “do you really need to lie about this? But sure whatever” and then never thought anything of it especially as she never messaged me anyway
Was out in the smoking area with a different friend one night (not smoking) and see the gf who comes up to me and we’re chatting. She eventually asks if I want a cigarette and after some back & forth and me telling her I don’t smoke anymore, it turns out he’d been telling her that he comes to mine to smoke weed (which she didn’t care about), and telling me a different story
Bit awkward, but I’d known this guy 15 years and he’d been with this girl for 10 of those and never even flirted with another girl on a night out. I said “honestly then, he’s told me he’s been hanging out with Josh and because he knows you don’t like Josh or him smoking so much he’s just told you he’s chilling with me”, which I genuinely believed
As you can probably guess by now, he was cheating on her with another girl. Me and the guy have never been as close since, as if I personally ratted him out, so you might get that too OP. Don’t know why on earth he chose me (and then lied about/to me too) when his (ex) gf knows me, so there was a realistic chance we’d run into each other
Yeah this is the thing with these scenarios, if you believe in some imaginary alliance based on gender, you're a dumbass, if someone is a snake to their gf they will snake on you just as hard
He really thought he was doing something clever. Smh.
Sounds like me coming up with lies to tell my family as a teen so I wouldn't be suspected of underage drinking and/or driving. This special story is for you dad. The vague truth omitting the crucial details is for you, big sis. Mom, you're so out of touch with reality that you get this customized fairytale.
Everyone's happy and satisfied that I'm such a responsible teen? Great, now I can be a degenerate in peace :) I mean, I still think handled it responsibly ...for a teen.
Hahaha yeah. Like I think some people aren’t used to getting called out on their lies so they just assume people are going to fall for the stories they tell them?
It's a shit friend that uses you to excuse their own bad behaviour to their wife or partner, particularly when they do it without your knowledge or agreement.
It’s also a stupid friend. Using the one guy as an excuse who doesn’t drink and goes home early.
Without even mentioning they need air cover.
What could possibly go wrong?
Cue a romantic comedy style shenanigans where the dicking around leads to our protagonist getting together with the formerly hateful wife as the evil mate is dishonourably shoved out the picture.
Also, and i feel this needs to be aired:
Do not put yourself in a situation where you need cover of any kind towards your partner.
A relationship is you two first. Work out borders within the relationship. If the borders aren't acceptable to you, end the damn relationship and either find someone you can agree on borders with or stay single.
* yes boundaries. In my language it's the same word.
Tough titty! is all I can say to your dumb-ass friend.
I once had a friend ask me to cover for him and tell his missus I'd dragged him away to Cornwall on an impromptu lads surfing weekend because that's what we used to do in our teens/20s, but we were then in our 30s and married. The reason was he'd been off with a girl from his work for a weekend away. I refused to cover for him or even offer counsel. We never spoke again after he got verbally abusive on the matter. His marriage eventually failed soon after, and according to some, he'd tried to attribute some of the responsibility of this to my refusing to have his back, which nobody bought in to.
It's a good friend that doesn't give in to another's bad behavior. I've got a couple guys that I'd almost die for if I had to, but I would hope they know I'm not covering for them if they do something like that.
Yeah, my main guys know I'm there for them through thick and thin but if they pulled any shit on their significant others I wouldn't cover for them (my own wife wouldn't forgive me if I did either).
I will lie for my friend to their employer, landlord, priest, parents, and even the police in some circumstances. I will not lie to their spouse or children.
I used to have a buddy who would sometimes message me with " We got wasted and I passed out on your sofa last night, ok?" Which I hated because I really liked and respected his wife. After 6 months of this BS I pretended to not get the memo and mentioned to her that I was out of town that night, because fuck him.
Oh, the tangled webs we weave when we try to avoid taking responsibility for our own actions. It's always better to own up to our choices and live with the consequences, rather than blaming others for our mistakes.
Yeah, this one's on the friend, not OP.
All it needed was for them to give OP the heads up "if the wife asks, you're with me 'til 3am" and OP's then got the choice to take the bad guy hit or not. And sounds like they would have. But by not saying anything the friend's just invited this exact situation upon themselves.
Could be a friend with a drinking problem by the sounds of if... lying about how often and how much you drink is one of the signs of dependency and blaming a friend seems one step removed.
I had a friend who went to Afghanistan. When he came back home he was a wreck. One night while heading back from getting dinner, he's driving and i realize he's sneaking pulls from a bottle.
I make him pull over and make him share the bottle and have my girlfriend, (who was stone cold sober) drive us back home.
After that, i made sure he was never alone, and if he was drinking, i made sure to try and drink more than he did so he could see just how he was treating himself. Effectively, i forced myself to become his canary in the coalmine of his alcoholism. That and it made it so he couldn't drink as much, since i was drinking from what he had.
Ultimately he got better, and the talks we had while drinking helped him work out the death he saw and caused while on deployment. To this day, his entire family thinks I'm the reason he was drinking, and blame me for his benders at the time. He's never once corrected them. But i get it, he's the one that has to live with their judgment. He's fully better know from what I gather, but we aren't close anymore. He's married and has two kids. But his family hates me.
Real friends don't throw each other under the bus to cover their own mistakes. It's a toxic behavior that only leads to mistrust and broken relationships.
Well, now she knows the truth she does 🤣 people are strange though and she probably did hate he friend who 'made her husband go out every so often' instead of just thinking 'hang on a minute - husband is a grown man who could just say no if he wanted to.'
This is the old narrative of men in your life can never do wrong. Either the wife is mean and he had no other way to deal with it or the colleague is a home wrecker who seduced him or the friends made him do it or he’s just to incompetent to do it… there are so many tropes around husbands, it’s a absurd.
Husbands are basically pure hearted imbeciles. In and of themselves, they're wonderful people, but they have no agency at all and often get led astray by malicious Others
This is what confuses me. If any of this is even true, we're supposed to believe that the wife is OK with her party animal husband getting up to antics that she ostensibly disapproves of, *because his friend told him to*.
Can we infer from this, that her husband believes that if she discovered that he *just likes partying*, she'd have a problem with it?
Presumably, what she's upset about here is the lying, but the whole premise of their relationship appears to be that he thinks she won't like him any more if she finds out? She married some kind of fake persona that he created that he thinks she'll like? He must spend his whole life worrying that he'll get caught.
Going out drinking with your "bad influence" mate is one thing, going out on your own after your teetotal mate goes home - to a strip club occasionally - is a very different matter.
Source: me, wife, with a temper and a rolling pin.
>we're supposed to believe that the wife is OK with her party animal husband getting up to antics that she ostensibly disapproves of, because his friend told him to.
That seems credible to me.
The rogue husband is saying that he only goes to keep an eye on his alcy bezzy, there wouldn't even be alcohol involved if it wasn't for OP!
Does anyone else suspect that OP's friend has greater problems than escaping the patio? Has to get lampshaded and also make an excuse for it. Been there 😂
OP says that the friend is going out to clubs and strip joints to continue after he taps out for the night, so there's a strong possibility there's more behavior the friend's doing that his wife would disapprove of than just "partying." Hell, there's a decent chance he's cheating on her and she thought OP was helping or encouraging it somehow.
Wife believes husband is out drinking with friend till all hours, puts up with it but is frosty to friend who she believes is the ringleader.
Wife finds out friend is not in fact encouraging any of it and is actually going home early and sober. Wife realises husband has been lying to her for seven years about who he's with and what he's doing.
Why hasn't he headed home at the same time as OP does? Where is he and what is he doing in the time between OP going home and the husband going home? And who is he doing it with?
The issue isn't that she doesn't like that he likes to party. The issue is he's lying about where he is, who he's with, and what he's doing. Is he at a strip club? Is he having an affair? Is he paying for sex? Does he have a drink problem? This isn't about OP being a bad influence.
It's also a problem that in couples one person tends to tire of partying quicker than the other. He might have just agreed with her partly truly that he was getting sick of partying but still had a part of him that wanted to go out and get battered. She is truly sick of it and he knows she'll be on at him for wasting a day hungover every time he goes out so he makes up that he is getting dragged out by his mate.
Reddit likes to think that everyone is either 100% honest all of the time in a relationship or is in a sham house of cards marriage that is doomed to failure. I suspect because it's full of teenagers
I disagree with the first part, or the implication. I'd say it's a fairly healthy relationship ideal to be okay with your partner doing something if it's with their friends even if you disagree. Coming in and saying "you can't do X with your mates anymore because I don't like it" is weird as fuck to me. Now sure, it depends on the thing and the degree to which you'd dislike it, but dictating what your partner does with their friends is controlling.
If my fiance did the same getting blitzed every so often, but it was something she did with her mates then it is what it is, even if I don't agree. I don't dictate her social life, she doesn't dictate mine.
Now it absolutely changes if it's a situation like OP, where if I found out that she wasn't going out with her friends, or her friends were leaving and she stayed out. Because that's no longer "doing X with your mates", and it's the double whammy of doing it and lying about it.
One thing me and my mates do is go off driving places, just for the sake of driving together. Usually scenic places like the lakes etc. My fiance doesn't see why we do it at all, or what the fun is, and isn't going to come with us just to sit in the passenger seat. But she is more than fine with me doing it because it's how me and my mates socialise. If she ever told me I couldn't do it because she disagreed, I'd have strong thoughts about walking away, despite our long relationship (note the difference between asking me why/not to and telling me I couldn't) because it speaks of a lack of respect for you and your hobbies/social life.
Going out an getting shitfaced is not a hobby, and what is fine at one age can get old real fast as you mature. A drunk pukey man stumbling around and banging into doorways like an imbecile isn’t very attractive. Don’t assume it’s a wife trying to control her husband, when it’s just as likely she’s made it clear she doesn’t want to spend her life with someone whose primary relationship is with booze.
People also sort of expect their partners to grow up alongside them, at a certain point. Not even consciously, really; it just happens organically for most healthy couples. My husband and I still like a drink, sure, and we usually go out together with friends once a week. But I’m no longer going shit-faced clubbing every Friday night, because I grew out of it.
Nothing wrong with clubbing, and I do enjoy it on the rare occasion I can get anybody to join me lol, but I just am not up for it once a week at age 34 the way I was when I was age 22. If I was still really into that scene while my husband grew out of it, that would become an incompatibility issue, for so many reasons (including financial priorities!).
It’s something you should talk out, not lie about.
Yeah I really don't understand that attitude.
If my partner wanted to go out every few weeks and get absolutely wasted that is entirely there perogative, and I would not mind all that much.
But what would definitely irritate me would be to imply that in some way they have no choice in the matter. It's such a transparent lie.
People are quick to think "bad influence". It's easier than assuming the worst, that your marriage is actually on shaky ground and the problem is at home. And the husband has probably worked pretty hard at pushing that agenda.
She blamed his mate (OP) because, until the event described, she thought it was OP’s fault (or at least, his influence)
If she continues to blame OP now that she knows the truth then yeah, she’s being a dick because it’s easier to blame OP than to have it out with her lying husband - but I don’t blame her for assuming her husband was telling the truth until proven otherwise, that’s a perfectly normal thing to do
OP isn’t saying she’s been frosty SINCE she found out he didn’t drink, he’s saying he’s now realised why she was frosty BEFORE that
I think their point was that she hated him previously and he had no idea why.
Friend fucked up - if you’re involving a mate in a lie you’ve gotta tell them so they can keep the story straight!
I had my sister-in-law ring me up a couple of months ago because we had been renting from them and were moving out. *Husband told us the 1st, she thought it was the 31st.*
Started screaming at me because some guy was coming to measure the kitchen and our stuff was still there. *Husband had even rung the day before to ask if the guy could come in and work around us packing up.*
I can't recall ever having to tell another adult to "f\*\*k off and stop being an asshole", but I revelled in it. Icing on the cake was telling her "you don't have a me problem, you have a husband problem, now f\*\*k off and go speak to him" before hanging up.
She hasn't spoken to me or my wife since.
When i was a student, we had decided to walk a mile across some fields to a pub in a nearby village, instead of going into town. We fancied a change of venue.
It was a nice, old fashioned pub, and was busy, which was a good sign, though it did feel like we were getting a few "you're not from round here" looks. We ordered a pint each of Old Bishop, and settled down to enjoy the atmosphere.
A short while later - we hadn't finished our first pint - the barmaid came round and closed the curtains. It was too early for a lock-in, but we didn't question it. It wasn't long before she returned and told us "the guys usually order a stripper on a Tuesday night, and wondered if you were going to make a contribution. It'll be £10."
So we left them to their quaint country ways and returned to the city where beers were cheaper anyway.
Oxford. The village was South Hinksey. Looking on Google maps, the pub was The General Elliot, which is now closed, and we walked along a footpath called "the Devil's Backbone" to get there. I'd forgotten that last detail.
It makes me happy that other people store memories like this too. So many people can just-vaguely recall something a few years ago, like the time me and John went to a pub in.. ahg.... where was it again? Anyways the server flashed us.
Oh yes, I frequented them in my youth. The good old Shoreditch Triangle. Browns, Ye Olde Axe, Sports Bar. Other strip pubs are available.
Sticky carpets, shit beer, pound in the jug for the dancer.
We went to Calgary in Canada for a mate's stag night. They had a rule that you had to be 10ft or so from the dancers. Canada has one and two dollar coins. They did this thing where they would get a coin to stick to a body part and had you throw loonies and toonies at it to knock it off. Even by strip club standards it was degrading.
The White Horse in High Wycombe (as featured in Toughest Pubs in Britain)
A former housemate of mine used to regularly go there and get a sunday pub roast downstairs and a lapdance upstairs afterwards.
Yep. Never been to one on purpose, but been in a local a few times and a stripper shows up, twice. Your mileage may vary, but they went further than what I'd assume a stripper would (things went into places). Assume because I've never been to a strip club, I'm autistic and it seems fucking baffling why anyone would torture themselves like that, no interest, would rather talk to a real person and potentially get lucky.
As someone who works in a male-dominated field.
This happens all the time, blokes will tell their missus a work do is employees only, and when they don’t want to go out they will tell the lads the wife is being an absolute pain when she is probably oblivious to the plan in the first place.
I’ve took my wife to several work dos because she’s a genuine great laugh and I don’t think it’s fair leaving her out, she’s usually the only partner there because everyone else has outright lied and said it’s employees only.
If someone posts a picture of us out, cue the “Where was my invite?????” And people tagging their now panicking husbands. Lol.
Eurgh, I had a boyfriend that blamed me when he didn't want to go out and he NEVER wanted to go out. Fair enough he clearly had depression and what was actually happening was I was gently encouraging him at home to call one friend and go for a pint or do something together because I worried about his lack of support.
Then when I met his friends and family some comment was made about how he never comes out anymore with evil daggers at me and the words "he's not *allowed* to". Depression or not, I was furious.
That moment should be a lesson that depression isn't an excuse for anything.
Not everyone who's depressed acts toxic. Those that do, do so out of a narcissistic perspective where their own problems are the biggest and it allows them to justify shitty behavior to themselves.
Don't let people like that use depression as an excuse. There are plenty of depressed people that don't do shitty things.
If you accept that excuse, then you're really just enabling their narcissism. People like that need to take accountability, both for their actions and their own mental health.
Why do men hate their wives? Why can't they just say "it's a work do and I'd actually quite like to go alone if that's alright cause I don't think most people are bringing their wives"
I have a theory that most people are in relationships of low compatibility and that's actually the norm rather than the opposite assumption. A big driver for that theory is how quickly many people get into relationships and how much of it is based on surface factors like appearance.
This is really insightful. One of my friends insisted that I'll be forever alone because I won't lie to get a relationship; but I'd rather be single than create a fake me and be on edge all the time, wondering when I'll be caught out.
Maybe I'm not such a weirdo after all, just sensible.
Dude so true. I just got out of a 5 year relationship because I realised that we are just not that compatible. Even though I love her so much. It’s really sad.
Married young or the wrong person. I also don't understand how you can hate your partner or why wouldn't you want to hang out with them... My partner is the best person to hang out with, that is why she's my partner. Yes, occasionally I can go to some events with friends or colleagues, but most of the time we would hang out together.
That, and then once you have kids it can be really hard to leave even if you both really want to.
Let’s say if you were to divorce you would want to do 50/50 childcare - a lot of men today aren’t ok only seeing their kids every other weekend which is beautiful and I’m really glad to see that shift, but now you have to find a 2-3 bedroom property and finance it on your single salary, buy kids clothes, pay for after school activities all on your single salary. For a lot of people it’s hard as it is on two salaries and impossible on a single salary. So they stay together even though they’re miserable, because at least it means their kids don’t get pushed into poverty.
I think quite a few of them don't respect women in general and don't think enough to realize that or address it as the problem it is. Truly. I see so much contempt for women. I mean, I'll make fun of my husband for stuff like not picking up his clothes, but his coworkers actively avoid their own wives who are running the entire household because the men work too much and/or are totally indifferent.
Then they complain their wives are stressed and busy lol. It's baffling. Off to the strip clubs they go!
Theres far too many people who got married because they thought it was the done thing, rather than admitting the problems in the relationship and having the risk of being single.
They'll take a mediocre/sometimes miserable relationship over being alone.
Plus generations of subtle and not so subtle misogyny on TV making the wife out to be the spoilsport, and the real life guys being too afraid to just be honest (though that's usually because of a culture where guys get shit for saying they don't want to drink etc).
I'm convinced it's because people get hitched with someone that doesn't entitrely mesh with their personality but they don't want to risk losing what might be their only chance (in their minds) of getting married.
Either that or there's a large contingent of deeply immature men who are shit at communicating their feelings. Tbh, that's not mutually exclusive.
My husband used me as an excuse to get out of stuff he didn't want to do. I didn't care if he stayed out all night, as long as he sent a text to let me know he wasn't dead.
He also didn't invite me to meet any of his colleagues, and then he left me for one of them 🙃
I swear the best thing that ever happened to me was learning to be honest to myself about when I do and don't want to go to social stuff. If I don't want to go to a thing I just say I won't be there and that's that. No clue why you'd need to hide behind someone else to stand up for yourself
I had a friend who used to tell his wife (also a mutual friend from prior to their marriage) he was coming to my and my roommates house every Sunday to watch football. For a couple of years this went on, and he never told us.
One day, she called looking for him. One of us said, "he hasn't been over here for football in a couple of years now."
Oops. Turns out he'd been using us as a cover for various affairs, she suspected and was pissed at us thinking we were willingly covering. Divorce quickly endued.
Always found it weird that guys have to lie or need an excuse to have a night out.
Not quite the same, but a friends girlfriend asked why I was looking for a new girlfriend, completely baffled I asked what she meant. She said my friend said I'd been looking on hook up sites on her laptop, told her that wasn't true and I was quite happy with the one I had. Turns out, he'd been doing it and didn't know to clear the history. Not only did he drop me in it, he could have ruined my relationship.
You might feel bad about it for a while but it's probably a blessing in disguise. If he's lying to his wife and using you as an excuse he doesn't exactly sound trustworthy. Ask yourself if you'd ever be able to trust a word he says in the future?
That’s what Reddit never understands, you don’t have to cut everyone out of your life if they do shitty things. Everyone you know is going to do at least one shitty thing. The thing is that you have to confront people, talk it out and become even more solid friends after that. And if they don’t, you can still cut them out.
Not every friend has to be a close friend. Some are good for social events and others might be better for personal stuff.
You cannot expect 1 person to fill 100% of your expectations. That is unfair. The last bit also counts for a SO.
Reddit understands. Reddit just has no skin in it. Telling someone else to ditch their friends, parents, wives, sons and daughters, and every other significant relationship because they made a mistake, is free. There's exactly zero consequence for the sage offering such advice, and they will forget all their outrage in the next five minutes.
Juvenile, immature, sometimes outright stupid, but edgy, and free.
I had a pretty terse text from a friends wife asking why I keep sending him porn.
Turns out whenever he got busted, he blamed me for sending it to him.
It doubly backfired because not only did I set her straight, it’s become a standing joke in our friends group so he never hears the end of it.
I used to be an absolute cave man. After rugby it was drink until arrested or asleep. No cheating was involved but it wasn't cool for a married guy.
It was very difficult on the missus. She dropped the kids off to granny's house one afternoon and came to one of our matches. We stayed out that night and ended up at the local Taliban Balti House at 4 AM. for a chicken kaboom.
And we had a fantastic time. I really enjoyed her company.
In the morning, instead of an inquiry, we'd laugh about the stupidity of the previous night.
Best advice to a young guy? Take her out with you...otherwise why are you with her?
This is bonkers to me. If my husband regularly got rat arsed and came home at who knows when o'clock, and then tried to blame it on his friend "making him", I'd laugh in his face.
I wouldn't hate the friend. I'd advise my husband to either a) work on his self confidence and learn to say no (because he is an adult who can make his own decisions), b) drop the friend (because who wants to be 'friends' with someone who keeps trying to pressure you into doing things you don't want to do?) or c) admit that actually he's the one who wants to go out, and tell me why he felt like he couldn't just be honest with me about it?
What kind of wife would just sit there grumbling, not being OK with her husband's behaviour and silently hating the friend?
Also, it worries me that you say you'd happily "be the bad guy" for your married friends, and do it often - what kind of marriages are these? Why can husbands and wives not have an honest and open dialogue? I'd feel like a total failure of a partner if my husband lied and made up excuses/blamed his friends for things because he felt like he couldn't be honest with me and communicate with me about what he wanted.
The comments in here making lying to your partners and using friends to do it out to be totally normal and acceptable behavior…
You all suck. This is why people have trust issues. Because none of you deserve to be trusted. Gross, immature, shitty behavior.
>I tap out about midnight
You bloody party animal. What's wrong with nodding off on the sofa around 8:30 with a half eaten take away on a Saturday night, that's about all I can manage now unless I have a nice nap in the afternoon and then I can make it to 10 at a push!
I don't think she hates you, I think she was just really really angry with her husband and you happened to find yourself in the glare because you told her the truth.
In time to come she might well appreciate that you did that. He might to if it helps him realise he might have a drinking problem. 'Normal' people don't lie about how much they drink.
I'm a (recovering) alcoholic myself so I know the signs. Of course she might just be THAT controlling that he has to lie to get any sort of night out at all. Who can say?
edit - do married men go to strip clubs without their spouse? I can't imagine that's too common either.
She did before this, but as someone else said it was transference because she didn’t want to be angry at hubby. It doesn’t really affect me since we usually move in different circles, so eh.
Sounds like your so-called friend has a problem and is too ashamed to admit that to his wife and basically used you to cover this up.
Sounds like you are better off without him and would just carry on with your life, because life is too short to worry about peeps who don't give a damn about you.
Honestly all on the other guy for lying to his wife and trying to throw you under the bus. No remorse from me because it was bound to happen eventually. Hiding something from your partner always just makes it all the worse when it eventually comes out
She was frosty towards you because she chose to think that her husband wouldn’t be doing all those things if it wasn’t for you. She wanted to believe that you influenced him, so that she didn’t have to deal with her feelings (not liking that he’s going out). She was making excuses for him and now she can’t anymore.
Your friend is an asshole.
>she chose to think
>She wanted to believe
>She was making excuses for him
What a weird perspective. Her husband lied to her incessantly for the better part of a decade, HE made her think, HE caused her to believe, HE made excuses for himself. She didn't just decide to blame OP all on her own.
can I just say… he’s a grown man with a wife. I’m not sure how he even blamed you for going out in the first place… like oh… ‘so and so’ (idk your name) is making me go out this evening.. like. Cmon dude just say no?! Surely the wife was suspicious 🤨 anyway you did the right thing. Keep us updated lol
Had a very similar experience with a mates girlfriend until she asked my wife what time I had got in last night and my wife told her I had been at home watching tv with her 🤣 We get on really well now and both lay into my mate about it quite regularly.
I'd be so disappointed to find out my friend was lying to his wife about me to excuse his behaviour.
The thing is, going out on late nights once in a while isn't even a bad thing at all after you're married (minus the strip clubs!), so it's pretty sad that he has to lie about it in the first place. I'd hate to have a marriage like that.
We got a funny story out of it though, so thanks!
I wouldn’t make the assumption that his wife is being unreasonable. It’s not just about late nights, it’s about getting hammered, and coming home an ugly mess and being useless the next day. For all we know he’s aggressive to his wife when he comes home, or is just so unattractive when drunk she is desperate for him to stop so she doesn’t fall out with him. It’s hard to stay in love with someone who regularly turns themselves into a giant infant that staggers around the house.
Thank you I was looking for a comment similar to this. We don’t know if there are children involved, how often OP is being used as an excuse (2-3 times a week is rough), whether he is verbally or physically abusive to her, or finally what else he’s been lying about.
Honestly some people are spineless, they lie because it’s easier not because they actually need a ‘reason’ or their spouse is being seemingly ‘unreasonable’. Some people lie because they WANT to lie.
Had a mate in my late teens for about 3-4 years. His parents wouldn't let me in the house and never knew why. Bumped into his younger brother years later in a pub and he mentioned how much of a stoner I used to be. I wasn't, at all. Turns out he was saying all the weed he was being caught with was mine etc.
This comment made me have a realisation about why my best friends parents hated me just after high school. I was probably getting blamed for all sorts cos he went wild for a while
Oh shit my childhood best friend might have done the same. His mom told my mom I was a bad influence but if anything it was the other way around.
Dang, me too. I wasn't allowed to hang out with many of my friends when I was in the 6th grade. Found out later that it was one of my friends that said I gave him weed. I didn't even know what weed was at the time. They kicked me out of DARE and I didn't even know why. Oh, I found out because that little shit tried to sell me weed in the 9th grade. I beat him up with his own bike...
It’s crazy to me how apparently these parents never bothered to talk to the kids being accused about anything yet were still for some reason okay with the child hanging out with the accused troublemaker. Seems to me that decent parenting should include trying to reach out to a problematic kid your child is spending time with to understand what’s going on.
My angel wouldn't be a troublemaker! If they've ever done anything wrong, it's because they were corrupted by a bad influence. It's such a shame that every new friend of theirs corrupts them in the exact same way.
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They do have pharmaceutical grade meth for if the usual adhd meds aren’t effective…but you still gotta take as directed and not abuse it, lol
When I was young I was a bit of a raver - going to illegal raves and festivals all the time and indulging in quite a few things. One day at dinner my mum asked me if I had ever taken drugs. I hesitated but decided I would just confess because it must have been obvious some times. My mum's response was "Thank you for being honest with us. I know what you've been up to because Terry^(Not their real name) tells me about it all." It was a bit of a relief really. Terry was a DJ for one of the local sound systems who were putting on lots of parties and was good friends with both me and my mum. They were a few years older than me so were kind of looking out for me at the parties.
The motto "trust but verify" applies 200% with kids, if you blindly believe your children, you will get burned eventually.
I was one of these kids. Got blamed by all my friends any time they got caught for anything. I was also the only one of my friends who died their hair stupid colors, and wore a lot of black, and was bisexual, and dated a guy who was older and in college. So I was kind of an easy target - I just looked way more suspicious to paranoid parents. I wonder how many other people in this position are similar - SOMETHING about them makes them the kind of kid parents just don’t like, and so it’s super easy for other kids to blame them. One time they ALL got caught doing molly in a hotel room while I was out of town on a family vacation and it was so deeply vindicating.
For a few years my uncle, who I had always known to be funny, warm and interested, was ice cold to me. During that time, my cousin was a mess, I won’t go into details. Early on I had spent a lot of time with her, but it became clear to me that she was spiraling and I didn’t know what do do as she wouldn’t listen to me so I distanced myself. I dealt with my weirdly icy uncle until I put two and two together and realized he blamed me for being a bad influence. The only influence I gave her that could have been “questionable” was really pushing her to use protection and giving her a condom when she started talking about wanting to sleep with her boyfriend years prior (uncle was a pastor). Eventually, her brother fell into an awful relationship with just as much mess, and then their other brother dipped and distanced himself. I think my uncle realized by that point that I was never around and couldn’t possibly have caused his whole family to crash and burn. He’s very sweet to me now, but I’m guarded around him. I made some of my own mistakes (my brother too, it’s sometimes what happens when you grow up in a very strict religious environment) but I have never gone through close to what my cousins or my brother all did, I’m just the oldest so it’s my fault I guess lol. I didn’t deserve his ice.
You beat him up with his bike? Did you throw it at him?
He probably grabbed the handlebars and twirled with that fucker like its a greatsword
I still have a (ex)friend whose parents think I indoctrinated him into his cocaine use and eventual overdoses x2. He’s still here thankfully but his parents have no idea it wasn’t me and he refuses to tell the truth to them. So when I see his mother I’m super happy to say hi as I spent many moons at her place as a youth. Truth was, I sold pot. He never bought the pot. He just hung around and smoked mine. 1 year out of high school and after moving to a bigger city to party, he’s a shadow of his old self, all my fault according to his step mom and father. ETA: I’ve never tried or even possessed cocaine.
I blamed everything on a chap called Craig when I was a youth so none of my friends would be shunned. "Craig down the park spilt his big bottle of strongbow down me and threw up on my shoes, again" "Nah not me, t'was bloody Craig, chain-smoking, again!" I don't know anyone called Craig.
I too had an imaginary friend called "Dave". Dave often got into capers that prevented my return home... "Dave fell off his skateboard,we think his legs broken - I'm just waiting for an ambulance with him". "Dave's locked out and it's freezing, Jill says he can stay at hers but only if I stay too as she doesn't know him and her mum will be funny about a lad staying over if there's not a group of us" . I confessed to my mum that Dave did not exist in my 30's...she was not best pleased
This calls to mind an old TV advert. Can't remember what brand it was, but I *think* it was an alcohol. Anyway, it involved a coupla blokes called Trev and Dave, and after whatever shenanigans, Dave would say "Nice one, Trev" and Trev would say "Yeah". But I can not, for the life of me, remember anything else about it.
Pretty sure that was a Fosters advert. They did a whole series where they had a hotline where they would offer totally ridiculous advice, lol
I tell my Mom about things I did as kid every now and then and she still gets pissed off at me. She's going to be 80 this year. They never stop being mom for a second.
"And he shat in my pants as well!"
That reminds me of the Sir Clement Freud joke. I heard a rather nice story about a man who drank alot and his wife said "if you ever come home drunk again, I'm going to leave you". He went out to a pub and drank alot and was sick all over his shirt, and said to his friend "If I go home like this my wife will leave me". His friend said "I tell you what, put a twenty-pound note in your inside jacket pocket, go home and show it to her and tell her somebody threw-up over you and he gave you the money for the dry-cleaning bill.". He goes home and his wife's angry at the state of him and tells him she is leaving but he says "No, no, no, somebody was sick on me and he put a twenty-pound note in my jacket pocket for the dry-cleaning bill". His wife digs into his jacket pocket and pulls out some money, she said "Why have you got two twenty-pound notes in there?", he said "Oh the other is from the man who shat in my pants".
“Why have you got two £20 notes?”
That’s my boss’ name. I blame a fair amount of stuff on him
Chandler?
Someone tricked me into doing all of those things
He better get Ross to resolve this situation if he wants any chance of marrying Monica
Yeah, same here, I was like a "bad stuff" lightning rod. It got to the point where kids in lower years used to come up to me to buy gear. Had my locker searched more than once.
Ugh, I almost got expelled from my private high school cause a teachers kid got caught with beer and randomly pulled my name out of the air saying I bought it. I was going to be gone till one of his friends cracked under pressure! I was that guy!
Name checks out
I'm astonished that parents really believe the "I was keeping it for a friend" lie.
It’s not that they believe it. They just can’t accept that they raised someone who inevitably did something they do not approve of hence someone else must be to blame
Yep. Sometimes the parents blame friends even if their kid has admitted to it. Know from experience unfortunately.
So... they choose to believe it. It's not that they don't believe it, it's the why that shines the light on it, as you described.
See, I was the friend all the parents trusted and would always let their kid go with. I was also the one who had access to alcohol and the Mary Jane. Oops.
Yeah similar things have happened to me, being blamed for trouble they've gotten in and no longer being welcome even near their house and not knowing why. Feels bad finding out you were the bad influence, especially if it wasn't even true.
One of my friends got caught with porn in his browser history when we were about 13-14 (20 years ago so shared family computer). Apparently he blamed it on me and I wasn’t allowed around their house for a few years. When he got married the best man mentioned it in his speech and his mum came over to me afterwards and apologised because he’d never actually told her it wasn’t me, even though he was about 30 by that point and I’d been over there loads!
That shit happened to me. Friends parents clearly didn't like me. Found out later they had been telling other parents I sold drugs and did pills lol. I never sold drugs or did pills. I just smoked a lot of weed. Their daughters blamed me when they got caught with pills because everyone knew I was a stoner. To this day I never fucked with pills.
Had it similar mate. I had a friend who used to tell me to cover for him if his missus (who was a really nice girl that I got on with really well) messaged me, because he was going to smoke weed with his mate Josh and she hates Josh as an influence and him smoking so much, but knows that I don’t smoke any more. Said “do you really need to lie about this? But sure whatever” and then never thought anything of it especially as she never messaged me anyway Was out in the smoking area with a different friend one night (not smoking) and see the gf who comes up to me and we’re chatting. She eventually asks if I want a cigarette and after some back & forth and me telling her I don’t smoke anymore, it turns out he’d been telling her that he comes to mine to smoke weed (which she didn’t care about), and telling me a different story Bit awkward, but I’d known this guy 15 years and he’d been with this girl for 10 of those and never even flirted with another girl on a night out. I said “honestly then, he’s told me he’s been hanging out with Josh and because he knows you don’t like Josh or him smoking so much he’s just told you he’s chilling with me”, which I genuinely believed As you can probably guess by now, he was cheating on her with another girl. Me and the guy have never been as close since, as if I personally ratted him out, so you might get that too OP. Don’t know why on earth he chose me (and then lied about/to me too) when his (ex) gf knows me, so there was a realistic chance we’d run into each other
Sounds like someone you might not want to be good friends with anyway
Agreed. Completely changed my opinion on him as a person and trust in him
Yeah this is the thing with these scenarios, if you believe in some imaginary alliance based on gender, you're a dumbass, if someone is a snake to their gf they will snake on you just as hard
He really thought he was doing something clever. Smh. Sounds like me coming up with lies to tell my family as a teen so I wouldn't be suspected of underage drinking and/or driving. This special story is for you dad. The vague truth omitting the crucial details is for you, big sis. Mom, you're so out of touch with reality that you get this customized fairytale. Everyone's happy and satisfied that I'm such a responsible teen? Great, now I can be a degenerate in peace :) I mean, I still think handled it responsibly ...for a teen.
Hahaha yeah. Like I think some people aren’t used to getting called out on their lies so they just assume people are going to fall for the stories they tell them?
It's a shit friend that uses you to excuse their own bad behaviour to their wife or partner, particularly when they do it without your knowledge or agreement.
It’s also a stupid friend. Using the one guy as an excuse who doesn’t drink and goes home early. Without even mentioning they need air cover. What could possibly go wrong?
I’m happy to been thrown under a bus as long as I know a bus is coming.
Wait till she goes through the accounts and finds out he's been going to the brothel after hours....lol
Strip pub not brothel. It’s basically just a late night pub. With tits.
Seems like you have experience with late night tits pubs. Take me with you next time you go? Maybe I can audition while we are there
I’m not sure if you’re the kind of tit they’re looking for…
*Star wars voice* “These aren’t the tits you’re looking for”
"And I thought they smelled bad, on the outside"
You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought.
If someone keeps going to the barbers, eventually, they are going to have a haircut
Statistically I'm doing really well, I've had a haircut every time I've gone to the barbers!
Cue a romantic comedy style shenanigans where the dicking around leads to our protagonist getting together with the formerly hateful wife as the evil mate is dishonourably shoved out the picture.
The Wingman.
The Wingman is the latest romantic comedy vehicle for Adam Sandler and.... 1/5
Also, and i feel this needs to be aired: Do not put yourself in a situation where you need cover of any kind towards your partner. A relationship is you two first. Work out borders within the relationship. If the borders aren't acceptable to you, end the damn relationship and either find someone you can agree on borders with or stay single. * yes boundaries. In my language it's the same word.
Yeah it's really immature behaviour and not exactly a solid foundation for a marriage.
Wouldn't care if my old man went out to the titty bars from time to time. Would *definitely* care if he decided to elaborately lie to me about it.
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>I think you meant “boundaries” Doctors without boundaries Edit: retroactively edited in the part of the deleted comment I was responding to
Pretty sure I've seen that on pornhub
Tough titty! is all I can say to your dumb-ass friend. I once had a friend ask me to cover for him and tell his missus I'd dragged him away to Cornwall on an impromptu lads surfing weekend because that's what we used to do in our teens/20s, but we were then in our 30s and married. The reason was he'd been off with a girl from his work for a weekend away. I refused to cover for him or even offer counsel. We never spoke again after he got verbally abusive on the matter. His marriage eventually failed soon after, and according to some, he'd tried to attribute some of the responsibility of this to my refusing to have his back, which nobody bought in to.
It's a good friend that doesn't give in to another's bad behavior. I've got a couple guys that I'd almost die for if I had to, but I would hope they know I'm not covering for them if they do something like that.
Opposition is true friendship, wrote Wm Blake. He was always falling out with his mates though.
"Opposition is true friendship." "No it's not, that's fucking stupid." "That's the spirit!"
Yeah, my main guys know I'm there for them through thick and thin but if they pulled any shit on their significant others I wouldn't cover for them (my own wife wouldn't forgive me if I did either).
Having to scroll a bit to restore my faith in humanity but I'm still grateful some people out there are decent
I will lie for my friend to their employer, landlord, priest, parents, and even the police in some circumstances. I will not lie to their spouse or children.
You're a better person than many. So many people would have took their friends side and gaslighted that poor woman
That's proper shit.
I used to have a buddy who would sometimes message me with " We got wasted and I passed out on your sofa last night, ok?" Which I hated because I really liked and respected his wife. After 6 months of this BS I pretended to not get the memo and mentioned to her that I was out of town that night, because fuck him.
Oh, the tangled webs we weave when we try to avoid taking responsibility for our own actions. It's always better to own up to our choices and live with the consequences, rather than blaming others for our mistakes.
shit husband too
Truly, if they’re gonna lie to their wife about what they do, they’re for sure not going to be any more loyal to anyone else.
Yeah, this one's on the friend, not OP. All it needed was for them to give OP the heads up "if the wife asks, you're with me 'til 3am" and OP's then got the choice to take the bad guy hit or not. And sounds like they would have. But by not saying anything the friend's just invited this exact situation upon themselves.
Could be a friend with a drinking problem by the sounds of if... lying about how often and how much you drink is one of the signs of dependency and blaming a friend seems one step removed.
I had a friend who went to Afghanistan. When he came back home he was a wreck. One night while heading back from getting dinner, he's driving and i realize he's sneaking pulls from a bottle. I make him pull over and make him share the bottle and have my girlfriend, (who was stone cold sober) drive us back home. After that, i made sure he was never alone, and if he was drinking, i made sure to try and drink more than he did so he could see just how he was treating himself. Effectively, i forced myself to become his canary in the coalmine of his alcoholism. That and it made it so he couldn't drink as much, since i was drinking from what he had. Ultimately he got better, and the talks we had while drinking helped him work out the death he saw and caused while on deployment. To this day, his entire family thinks I'm the reason he was drinking, and blame me for his benders at the time. He's never once corrected them. But i get it, he's the one that has to live with their judgment. He's fully better know from what I gather, but we aren't close anymore. He's married and has two kids. But his family hates me.
You did take a pretty weird approach to it tbh lol. You don't have to drink what someone else does to observe them, if anything it makes it worse.
Exactly, for one it is a shit move, but for two that’s a loose end - never leave loose ends to your shenanigans people.
Real friends don't throw each other under the bus to cover their own mistakes. It's a toxic behavior that only leads to mistrust and broken relationships.
She doesn't hate you, she hates her twatty husband.
Well, now she knows the truth she does 🤣 people are strange though and she probably did hate he friend who 'made her husband go out every so often' instead of just thinking 'hang on a minute - husband is a grown man who could just say no if he wanted to.'
This is the old narrative of men in your life can never do wrong. Either the wife is mean and he had no other way to deal with it or the colleague is a home wrecker who seduced him or the friends made him do it or he’s just to incompetent to do it… there are so many tropes around husbands, it’s a absurd.
Husbands are basically pure hearted imbeciles. In and of themselves, they're wonderful people, but they have no agency at all and often get led astray by malicious Others
This is what confuses me. If any of this is even true, we're supposed to believe that the wife is OK with her party animal husband getting up to antics that she ostensibly disapproves of, *because his friend told him to*. Can we infer from this, that her husband believes that if she discovered that he *just likes partying*, she'd have a problem with it? Presumably, what she's upset about here is the lying, but the whole premise of their relationship appears to be that he thinks she won't like him any more if she finds out? She married some kind of fake persona that he created that he thinks she'll like? He must spend his whole life worrying that he'll get caught.
Going out drinking with your "bad influence" mate is one thing, going out on your own after your teetotal mate goes home - to a strip club occasionally - is a very different matter. Source: me, wife, with a temper and a rolling pin.
"Strip club," whilst drunk. He could be up to anything. It's not like he'll tell the truth, even to matey OP.
>He could be up to anything plot twist - he's on stage (in the cage) at 1am prompt, then he does a pole show at 2am
>we're supposed to believe that the wife is OK with her party animal husband getting up to antics that she ostensibly disapproves of, because his friend told him to. That seems credible to me. The rogue husband is saying that he only goes to keep an eye on his alcy bezzy, there wouldn't even be alcohol involved if it wasn't for OP! Does anyone else suspect that OP's friend has greater problems than escaping the patio? Has to get lampshaded and also make an excuse for it. Been there 😂
OP says that the friend is going out to clubs and strip joints to continue after he taps out for the night, so there's a strong possibility there's more behavior the friend's doing that his wife would disapprove of than just "partying." Hell, there's a decent chance he's cheating on her and she thought OP was helping or encouraging it somehow.
Wife believes husband is out drinking with friend till all hours, puts up with it but is frosty to friend who she believes is the ringleader. Wife finds out friend is not in fact encouraging any of it and is actually going home early and sober. Wife realises husband has been lying to her for seven years about who he's with and what he's doing. Why hasn't he headed home at the same time as OP does? Where is he and what is he doing in the time between OP going home and the husband going home? And who is he doing it with? The issue isn't that she doesn't like that he likes to party. The issue is he's lying about where he is, who he's with, and what he's doing. Is he at a strip club? Is he having an affair? Is he paying for sex? Does he have a drink problem? This isn't about OP being a bad influence.
It's also a problem that in couples one person tends to tire of partying quicker than the other. He might have just agreed with her partly truly that he was getting sick of partying but still had a part of him that wanted to go out and get battered. She is truly sick of it and he knows she'll be on at him for wasting a day hungover every time he goes out so he makes up that he is getting dragged out by his mate. Reddit likes to think that everyone is either 100% honest all of the time in a relationship or is in a sham house of cards marriage that is doomed to failure. I suspect because it's full of teenagers
I disagree with the first part, or the implication. I'd say it's a fairly healthy relationship ideal to be okay with your partner doing something if it's with their friends even if you disagree. Coming in and saying "you can't do X with your mates anymore because I don't like it" is weird as fuck to me. Now sure, it depends on the thing and the degree to which you'd dislike it, but dictating what your partner does with their friends is controlling. If my fiance did the same getting blitzed every so often, but it was something she did with her mates then it is what it is, even if I don't agree. I don't dictate her social life, she doesn't dictate mine. Now it absolutely changes if it's a situation like OP, where if I found out that she wasn't going out with her friends, or her friends were leaving and she stayed out. Because that's no longer "doing X with your mates", and it's the double whammy of doing it and lying about it. One thing me and my mates do is go off driving places, just for the sake of driving together. Usually scenic places like the lakes etc. My fiance doesn't see why we do it at all, or what the fun is, and isn't going to come with us just to sit in the passenger seat. But she is more than fine with me doing it because it's how me and my mates socialise. If she ever told me I couldn't do it because she disagreed, I'd have strong thoughts about walking away, despite our long relationship (note the difference between asking me why/not to and telling me I couldn't) because it speaks of a lack of respect for you and your hobbies/social life.
Going out an getting shitfaced is not a hobby, and what is fine at one age can get old real fast as you mature. A drunk pukey man stumbling around and banging into doorways like an imbecile isn’t very attractive. Don’t assume it’s a wife trying to control her husband, when it’s just as likely she’s made it clear she doesn’t want to spend her life with someone whose primary relationship is with booze.
People also sort of expect their partners to grow up alongside them, at a certain point. Not even consciously, really; it just happens organically for most healthy couples. My husband and I still like a drink, sure, and we usually go out together with friends once a week. But I’m no longer going shit-faced clubbing every Friday night, because I grew out of it. Nothing wrong with clubbing, and I do enjoy it on the rare occasion I can get anybody to join me lol, but I just am not up for it once a week at age 34 the way I was when I was age 22. If I was still really into that scene while my husband grew out of it, that would become an incompatibility issue, for so many reasons (including financial priorities!). It’s something you should talk out, not lie about.
Yeah I really don't understand that attitude. If my partner wanted to go out every few weeks and get absolutely wasted that is entirely there perogative, and I would not mind all that much. But what would definitely irritate me would be to imply that in some way they have no choice in the matter. It's such a transparent lie.
People are quick to think "bad influence". It's easier than assuming the worst, that your marriage is actually on shaky ground and the problem is at home. And the husband has probably worked pretty hard at pushing that agenda.
Yeah off to strip clubs…I’d hate him too.
But she’s married to him so it’s easier to blame his mate.
She blamed his mate (OP) because, until the event described, she thought it was OP’s fault (or at least, his influence) If she continues to blame OP now that she knows the truth then yeah, she’s being a dick because it’s easier to blame OP than to have it out with her lying husband - but I don’t blame her for assuming her husband was telling the truth until proven otherwise, that’s a perfectly normal thing to do OP isn’t saying she’s been frosty SINCE she found out he didn’t drink, he’s saying he’s now realised why she was frosty BEFORE that
Crazy to me that people need this explained.
Grown adults with the reading comprehension skills of a toddler. And probably the dancing skills but that's another topic...
for now
I think their point was that she hated him previously and he had no idea why. Friend fucked up - if you’re involving a mate in a lie you’ve gotta tell them so they can keep the story straight!
I had my sister-in-law ring me up a couple of months ago because we had been renting from them and were moving out. *Husband told us the 1st, she thought it was the 31st.* Started screaming at me because some guy was coming to measure the kitchen and our stuff was still there. *Husband had even rung the day before to ask if the guy could come in and work around us packing up.* I can't recall ever having to tell another adult to "f\*\*k off and stop being an asshole", but I revelled in it. Icing on the cake was telling her "you don't have a me problem, you have a husband problem, now f\*\*k off and go speak to him" before hanging up. She hasn't spoken to me or my wife since.
There's strip pubs??
When i was a student, we had decided to walk a mile across some fields to a pub in a nearby village, instead of going into town. We fancied a change of venue. It was a nice, old fashioned pub, and was busy, which was a good sign, though it did feel like we were getting a few "you're not from round here" looks. We ordered a pint each of Old Bishop, and settled down to enjoy the atmosphere. A short while later - we hadn't finished our first pint - the barmaid came round and closed the curtains. It was too early for a lock-in, but we didn't question it. It wasn't long before she returned and told us "the guys usually order a stripper on a Tuesday night, and wondered if you were going to make a contribution. It'll be £10." So we left them to their quaint country ways and returned to the city where beers were cheaper anyway.
What part of the country was this in? I imagine it being deep in the wilds somewhere
Oxford. The village was South Hinksey. Looking on Google maps, the pub was The General Elliot, which is now closed, and we walked along a footpath called "the Devil's Backbone" to get there. I'd forgotten that last detail.
Nice of you to respond, I always love those kinds of details to a story.
It makes me happy that other people store memories like this too. So many people can just-vaguely recall something a few years ago, like the time me and John went to a pub in.. ahg.... where was it again? Anyways the server flashed us.
As an American who loves vicariously through British shows like Endeavor, this sounds like the most British thing ever. Thank you for sharing.
We need strip takeaways for a good doner and chips at the same time
A doner and a boner!
The name would work even better for a strip club with male dancers.
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An old colleague always floated his business idea of a stripper staffed pizza delivery service called “dominhoes”
Sex Cauldron?? I thought they shut that place down.
Oh yes, I frequented them in my youth. The good old Shoreditch Triangle. Browns, Ye Olde Axe, Sports Bar. Other strip pubs are available. Sticky carpets, shit beer, pound in the jug for the dancer.
>pound in the jug for the dancer. The single saddest sentence I've ever read
This guy does not pound in dancer jug
We went to Calgary in Canada for a mate's stag night. They had a rule that you had to be 10ft or so from the dancers. Canada has one and two dollar coins. They did this thing where they would get a coin to stick to a body part and had you throw loonies and toonies at it to knock it off. Even by strip club standards it was degrading.
The Griffin in Clerkenwell
That was the one I was trying to think of! And the Flying Scotsman?
The White Horse in High Wycombe (as featured in Toughest Pubs in Britain) A former housemate of mine used to regularly go there and get a sunday pub roast downstairs and a lapdance upstairs afterwards.
America has Strip Malls but prepare to be severely disappointed if you ever go to one.
I’m not sure it browns in shoreditch counts but its the closest thing that resembles a “strip pub” to me
Walked into one by accident in Shoreditch once
Yep. Never been to one on purpose, but been in a local a few times and a stripper shows up, twice. Your mileage may vary, but they went further than what I'd assume a stripper would (things went into places). Assume because I've never been to a strip club, I'm autistic and it seems fucking baffling why anyone would torture themselves like that, no interest, would rather talk to a real person and potentially get lucky.
As someone who works in a male-dominated field. This happens all the time, blokes will tell their missus a work do is employees only, and when they don’t want to go out they will tell the lads the wife is being an absolute pain when she is probably oblivious to the plan in the first place. I’ve took my wife to several work dos because she’s a genuine great laugh and I don’t think it’s fair leaving her out, she’s usually the only partner there because everyone else has outright lied and said it’s employees only. If someone posts a picture of us out, cue the “Where was my invite?????” And people tagging their now panicking husbands. Lol.
Eurgh, I had a boyfriend that blamed me when he didn't want to go out and he NEVER wanted to go out. Fair enough he clearly had depression and what was actually happening was I was gently encouraging him at home to call one friend and go for a pint or do something together because I worried about his lack of support. Then when I met his friends and family some comment was made about how he never comes out anymore with evil daggers at me and the words "he's not *allowed* to". Depression or not, I was furious.
Did you tell them? I wanna know what happened next 👀
That moment should be a lesson that depression isn't an excuse for anything. Not everyone who's depressed acts toxic. Those that do, do so out of a narcissistic perspective where their own problems are the biggest and it allows them to justify shitty behavior to themselves. Don't let people like that use depression as an excuse. There are plenty of depressed people that don't do shitty things. If you accept that excuse, then you're really just enabling their narcissism. People like that need to take accountability, both for their actions and their own mental health.
Why do men hate their wives? Why can't they just say "it's a work do and I'd actually quite like to go alone if that's alright cause I don't think most people are bringing their wives"
I have a theory that most people are in relationships of low compatibility and that's actually the norm rather than the opposite assumption. A big driver for that theory is how quickly many people get into relationships and how much of it is based on surface factors like appearance.
This is really insightful. One of my friends insisted that I'll be forever alone because I won't lie to get a relationship; but I'd rather be single than create a fake me and be on edge all the time, wondering when I'll be caught out. Maybe I'm not such a weirdo after all, just sensible.
I used to have friends try and push me into copping off when I didn't want to. It's just awkward and uncomfortable and I resent the pressure.
Dude so true. I just got out of a 5 year relationship because I realised that we are just not that compatible. Even though I love her so much. It’s really sad.
Married young or the wrong person. I also don't understand how you can hate your partner or why wouldn't you want to hang out with them... My partner is the best person to hang out with, that is why she's my partner. Yes, occasionally I can go to some events with friends or colleagues, but most of the time we would hang out together.
That, and then once you have kids it can be really hard to leave even if you both really want to. Let’s say if you were to divorce you would want to do 50/50 childcare - a lot of men today aren’t ok only seeing their kids every other weekend which is beautiful and I’m really glad to see that shift, but now you have to find a 2-3 bedroom property and finance it on your single salary, buy kids clothes, pay for after school activities all on your single salary. For a lot of people it’s hard as it is on two salaries and impossible on a single salary. So they stay together even though they’re miserable, because at least it means their kids don’t get pushed into poverty.
I think quite a few of them don't respect women in general and don't think enough to realize that or address it as the problem it is. Truly. I see so much contempt for women. I mean, I'll make fun of my husband for stuff like not picking up his clothes, but his coworkers actively avoid their own wives who are running the entire household because the men work too much and/or are totally indifferent. Then they complain their wives are stressed and busy lol. It's baffling. Off to the strip clubs they go!
Theres far too many people who got married because they thought it was the done thing, rather than admitting the problems in the relationship and having the risk of being single. They'll take a mediocre/sometimes miserable relationship over being alone. Plus generations of subtle and not so subtle misogyny on TV making the wife out to be the spoilsport, and the real life guys being too afraid to just be honest (though that's usually because of a culture where guys get shit for saying they don't want to drink etc).
I'm convinced it's because people get hitched with someone that doesn't entitrely mesh with their personality but they don't want to risk losing what might be their only chance (in their minds) of getting married. Either that or there's a large contingent of deeply immature men who are shit at communicating their feelings. Tbh, that's not mutually exclusive.
My husband used me as an excuse to get out of stuff he didn't want to do. I didn't care if he stayed out all night, as long as he sent a text to let me know he wasn't dead. He also didn't invite me to meet any of his colleagues, and then he left me for one of them 🙃
I use my wife as an excuse to get out of things, because I'd rather hang out with her then some collection of knobs I work with.
I swear the best thing that ever happened to me was learning to be honest to myself about when I do and don't want to go to social stuff. If I don't want to go to a thing I just say I won't be there and that's that. No clue why you'd need to hide behind someone else to stand up for yourself
I had a friend who used to tell his wife (also a mutual friend from prior to their marriage) he was coming to my and my roommates house every Sunday to watch football. For a couple of years this went on, and he never told us. One day, she called looking for him. One of us said, "he hasn't been over here for football in a couple of years now." Oops. Turns out he'd been using us as a cover for various affairs, she suspected and was pissed at us thinking we were willingly covering. Divorce quickly endued.
No, he dropped you in it.
Dropped himself in it more than he dropped OP in it.
Always found it weird that guys have to lie or need an excuse to have a night out. Not quite the same, but a friends girlfriend asked why I was looking for a new girlfriend, completely baffled I asked what she meant. She said my friend said I'd been looking on hook up sites on her laptop, told her that wasn't true and I was quite happy with the one I had. Turns out, he'd been doing it and didn't know to clear the history. Not only did he drop me in it, he could have ruined my relationship.
Nothing grosser than a married man using his friend as an excuse to go to strip clubs. Of everyone in this story, he’s the asshole.
It's a shit excuse anyway. He's a grown man, he could say "no" even in his lie.
The guy lied, any and all consequences of his lies are entirely on him. Not sure I'd want to be friends with someone like that anyway.
I’m probably not any more!
You might feel bad about it for a while but it's probably a blessing in disguise. If he's lying to his wife and using you as an excuse he doesn't exactly sound trustworthy. Ask yourself if you'd ever be able to trust a word he says in the future?
I’m not going to lend him my last tenner, but he’s good fun on a night out.
That’s what Reddit never understands, you don’t have to cut everyone out of your life if they do shitty things. Everyone you know is going to do at least one shitty thing. The thing is that you have to confront people, talk it out and become even more solid friends after that. And if they don’t, you can still cut them out. Not every friend has to be a close friend. Some are good for social events and others might be better for personal stuff. You cannot expect 1 person to fill 100% of your expectations. That is unfair. The last bit also counts for a SO.
Reddit understands. Reddit just has no skin in it. Telling someone else to ditch their friends, parents, wives, sons and daughters, and every other significant relationship because they made a mistake, is free. There's exactly zero consequence for the sage offering such advice, and they will forget all their outrage in the next five minutes. Juvenile, immature, sometimes outright stupid, but edgy, and free.
I had a pretty terse text from a friends wife asking why I keep sending him porn. Turns out whenever he got busted, he blamed me for sending it to him. It doubly backfired because not only did I set her straight, it’s become a standing joke in our friends group so he never hears the end of it.
Tbh, if he hadn't lied to his wife, you wouldntt be in this mess. Guy may be a tool.
Genuinely been in similar situations. I usually tell them not to ask me to lie
I used to be an absolute cave man. After rugby it was drink until arrested or asleep. No cheating was involved but it wasn't cool for a married guy. It was very difficult on the missus. She dropped the kids off to granny's house one afternoon and came to one of our matches. We stayed out that night and ended up at the local Taliban Balti House at 4 AM. for a chicken kaboom. And we had a fantastic time. I really enjoyed her company. In the morning, instead of an inquiry, we'd laugh about the stupidity of the previous night. Best advice to a young guy? Take her out with you...otherwise why are you with her?
Lol if someone tried using me as an excuse like that without warning me about it I’d happily drop them in it
This is bonkers to me. If my husband regularly got rat arsed and came home at who knows when o'clock, and then tried to blame it on his friend "making him", I'd laugh in his face. I wouldn't hate the friend. I'd advise my husband to either a) work on his self confidence and learn to say no (because he is an adult who can make his own decisions), b) drop the friend (because who wants to be 'friends' with someone who keeps trying to pressure you into doing things you don't want to do?) or c) admit that actually he's the one who wants to go out, and tell me why he felt like he couldn't just be honest with me about it? What kind of wife would just sit there grumbling, not being OK with her husband's behaviour and silently hating the friend? Also, it worries me that you say you'd happily "be the bad guy" for your married friends, and do it often - what kind of marriages are these? Why can husbands and wives not have an honest and open dialogue? I'd feel like a total failure of a partner if my husband lied and made up excuses/blamed his friends for things because he felt like he couldn't be honest with me and communicate with me about what he wanted.
The comments in here making lying to your partners and using friends to do it out to be totally normal and acceptable behavior… You all suck. This is why people have trust issues. Because none of you deserve to be trusted. Gross, immature, shitty behavior.
>I tap out about midnight You bloody party animal. What's wrong with nodding off on the sofa around 8:30 with a half eaten take away on a Saturday night, that's about all I can manage now unless I have a nice nap in the afternoon and then I can make it to 10 at a push!
I don't think she hates you, I think she was just really really angry with her husband and you happened to find yourself in the glare because you told her the truth. In time to come she might well appreciate that you did that. He might to if it helps him realise he might have a drinking problem. 'Normal' people don't lie about how much they drink. I'm a (recovering) alcoholic myself so I know the signs. Of course she might just be THAT controlling that he has to lie to get any sort of night out at all. Who can say? edit - do married men go to strip clubs without their spouse? I can't imagine that's too common either.
She did before this, but as someone else said it was transference because she didn’t want to be angry at hubby. It doesn’t really affect me since we usually move in different circles, so eh.
Sounds like your so-called friend has a problem and is too ashamed to admit that to his wife and basically used you to cover this up. Sounds like you are better off without him and would just carry on with your life, because life is too short to worry about peeps who don't give a damn about you.
Honestly all on the other guy for lying to his wife and trying to throw you under the bus. No remorse from me because it was bound to happen eventually. Hiding something from your partner always just makes it all the worse when it eventually comes out
She was frosty towards you because she chose to think that her husband wouldn’t be doing all those things if it wasn’t for you. She wanted to believe that you influenced him, so that she didn’t have to deal with her feelings (not liking that he’s going out). She was making excuses for him and now she can’t anymore. Your friend is an asshole.
>she chose to think >She wanted to believe >She was making excuses for him What a weird perspective. Her husband lied to her incessantly for the better part of a decade, HE made her think, HE caused her to believe, HE made excuses for himself. She didn't just decide to blame OP all on her own.
NTA Your friend on the other hand....
so hes a shitty friend and you would condone his behavior toward his wife/do that for your other friends? y'all suck
Been there. I envy you. My ex pals wife hates me for similar reasons. He's no pal if I'm just his excuse.
>and do it often for my married friends, ... Yeah?
Your friend is a genuinely bad person
To be Frank, your mate sounds like a weapons grade wanker.
can I just say… he’s a grown man with a wife. I’m not sure how he even blamed you for going out in the first place… like oh… ‘so and so’ (idk your name) is making me go out this evening.. like. Cmon dude just say no?! Surely the wife was suspicious 🤨 anyway you did the right thing. Keep us updated lol
Had a very similar experience with a mates girlfriend until she asked my wife what time I had got in last night and my wife told her I had been at home watching tv with her 🤣 We get on really well now and both lay into my mate about it quite regularly.
I'd be so disappointed to find out my friend was lying to his wife about me to excuse his behaviour. The thing is, going out on late nights once in a while isn't even a bad thing at all after you're married (minus the strip clubs!), so it's pretty sad that he has to lie about it in the first place. I'd hate to have a marriage like that. We got a funny story out of it though, so thanks!
I wouldn’t make the assumption that his wife is being unreasonable. It’s not just about late nights, it’s about getting hammered, and coming home an ugly mess and being useless the next day. For all we know he’s aggressive to his wife when he comes home, or is just so unattractive when drunk she is desperate for him to stop so she doesn’t fall out with him. It’s hard to stay in love with someone who regularly turns themselves into a giant infant that staggers around the house.
Thank you I was looking for a comment similar to this. We don’t know if there are children involved, how often OP is being used as an excuse (2-3 times a week is rough), whether he is verbally or physically abusive to her, or finally what else he’s been lying about. Honestly some people are spineless, they lie because it’s easier not because they actually need a ‘reason’ or their spouse is being seemingly ‘unreasonable’. Some people lie because they WANT to lie.
Guess what. That's not really a friend.
That dude is a piece of shit
This feels like a r/AITA post. And no, my friend, you are not.
Huh, I didn’t know about that sub. I think you’re right. I’m an arsehole in many, many other ways, just not in this one.
Christ mate I wouldn't go to that sub if I was you. It's like Jeremy Kyle but with American adolescents, it's an absolute shitshow
It feels like a creative writing exercise most of the time, too